Great idea in action

Boston is finally getting the wheels in motion to start up a public food market, a la Pike Place in Seattle. I say, tremendous!

I'm a frequent patron of the Haymarket fruit and vegetable stands, which are fine for cheap produce. There's definitely something to be said, though, for an indoor, year-round, daily venue for purveyors of local and regional food. (It's tough to sift through a pile of apples when it's 10 degrees outside!)

I actually wasn't aware of how much of a staple the public food market was to the big American city. Apparently, dear reader, it is. I had an argument with a friend from college one time. She's going to law school in New York now, and tried to convince me that Boston wasn't a real city. (Her main reason for thinking this: real cities don't have subways that stop at red lights. I hope she learns how to argue a little better in law school.) Irregardless of the weakness of her case, the whole discussion rattled me. The subways do stop at red lights! The bars do close at 2! All of this is to say, it warms the cockles of my heart to see Boston take another stop to bolster its "real city" credentials.